RAM Question...

Greetings, I am a Flash animator and I recently bought a new laptop that I THOUGHT would out-perform my old laptop. However, upon starting my first workday with it, I found it unbelievably slower -- everything I click takes a half-a-second to respond, the Flash timeline cursor lags about a half-a-second behind the mouse, etc. I didn't notice this until I opened my typical workday set-up, which is Flash, Photoshop, and Illustrator (plus various other programs like Thunderbird), so the problem seems to be multi-tasking.

When I shopped for a computer, I got a faster CPU, 4 times the amount a RAM, and a Core 2 Processor (which is supposed to be geared towards multi-tasking). However, in researching this problem, I saw something about Dual-Channel, which I know NOTHING about, and I am now fearing that the machine I got does not have it...

Here is my old laptop specs:

Inspiron 1405, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7400 (4MB/2.16GHz/667MHz)
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 533MHZ,2 DIMM for Inspiron 640M/E1405

Here is my new laptop specs:

Inspiron 1520, Intel Core 2 Duo T8300(2.4GHz, 800Mhz, 3M L2 Cache)
4GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm

Have I just blown a grand-and-a-half simply to slow me down?

 

is all your ram showing up??

I'm sure your new laptop utilizes dual channel memory -- you probably have 2 slots w/ 2mb in each slot- which is a perfect dual channel setup!! It wouldn't be noticeably slower anyway w/ that much memory.

what os systems are on the laptops? have you installed updates and sp1(if it's vista)

have you checked to see what processes are running in the background?

 

Have you done a clean install of Vista?
Dell products come loaded with all sorts of software, which slows down your laptop hugely. A clean install removes this "bloatware," speeding up your laptop.
Before you do, backup all your data, then follow the stickied guide, or even just check the stickied guide for more info.

 

Your "old" rig is quite powerful. A RAM upgrade was enough for it.

After my personal experiences with vista. I think it is responsible for that.

Check the number of background processes, install the SP1 update if you missed it, get rid of unnecessary programs [bloatware]. Your system would run vroom..

 

I should have also noted that I'm still on XP (trying to delay the inevitable switch to Big Brother). Do you think that might make a difference?

Services: I've installed EXACTLY what I had on the other machine (I'm very fastidious and don't install a lot of extra stuff), but...

Clean Install: I didn't do a clean install, so I guess I ought to do that before writing it off.

It's just that this seems like something much more pronounced that what a sloppy install would cause, so I wanted to know if there was anything obvious in those specs that warranted a red flag.

For example, I see a 4MB next to the processor description (wonderfully informative, isn't it?) on the older laptop, but only 3MB on the new one - are the referring to the mysterious Cache and would THAT have an effect?

In any matter, thanks for the input!

 

that '4mb' is the amount of cache the processor has. 1 less mb of cache shouldn't outweigh the benefits of higher clock speeds of t8300.
It's wierd that you have a better proc, more faster ram and getting less performance. I think you should definitely try a clean install of XP. make sure you're on power cord and not batteries.

 

well, holy cow! I'm not sure if my problem is completely solved because it still feels a little sluggish, but plugging in the cord (which had been loose) sure made a difference. How does power management affect processor/RAM speed? I thought it mostly had to do with hard-drive and screen usage?

Anyway, i'll try it after a clean install as well....

 

The power profiles make HUGE differences!
You can go back to the default (ie full powered) profile, and it will increase performance at the cost of battery life

 

Well, if there was an emoticon for "sheepish", I'd type it now. But to be fair, I've never experienced that amount of difference between powered and not. Many thanks to you all....

 

You can change these settings through RMClock. It's supposed to be a battery saver.

 

For those of you still following this thread, I have found out that there is apparently a design flaw in recent Dell laptops that causes the motherboard to frequently NOT recognize the 90W plug that is attached to it, which causes the the system to tell the machine to slow down all of it's resources. That is why, even with the power cord attached, my system was crawling. Ironically, I now get better performance on battery, because I've set the power management settings to maximum on battery.

 

Haven't seen too many other people with that problem. You should contact dell and have your mobo replaced if it's confirmed that it is causing the problem.

 

Do you have the 8600 card? It might not like the smaller adaptors.

 

i have a question bout the power settings. when my laptop is plugged in should i have the power settings to high performance cause ive had it on the recommened settings. and of course change it when i go mobile.